ALP Seminar: (Unusual) Advances in Integrated Photonics

Recently, integrated photonics has enabled “non-incremental” performance in several important characteristics that are necessary for both quantum and classical optics. 

Alongside a summary of the field, I will present our results in high-bandwidth and low-voltage (100 GHz, 1 V) electro-optic modulators, fast and low loss (40 ps, 0.35 dB) single-photon switches, and efficient and nearly-ideal parametric photon-pair sources, and high-extinction optical filters based on a novel waveguide concept.  

These are recent outcomes of high-risk, high-reward projects which benefit from a study of hybrid materials, cross-disciplinary device design, and innovative fabrication of microchips leveraging the capabilities of both foundries and universities, and have been published in major journals such as Optica and Physical Review Letters, and the post-deadline papers of the OFC and CLEO conferences.

Shayan Mookherjea received a BS degree with honors from Caltech, an SM degree from MIT, and a Ph.D. from Caltech in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Physics. He is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He leads the Integrated Photonics Group at UCSD and has been an Optica Fellow (formerly OSA) since 2013.